VDB
KO
MEDIUM

GHSA-f9vr-g2g2-x9fg

Hackney has CRLF / header injection in WebSocket upgrade request

Details

### Summary

CRLF injection in hackney's WebSocket upgrade request builder (`src/hackney_ws.erl`). `init/1` copies the `host`, `path`, `headers`, and `protocols` options from the caller-supplied opts map verbatim into `#ws_data{}`, and `do_handshake/1` splices them directly into the raw HTTP/1.1 upgrade request by binary concatenation with no `\r\n` or `\0` stripping. A caller that passes any of these fields from untrusted input can inject arbitrary header lines into the outbound upgrade request.

### Details

`do_handshake/1` builds the upgrade request at several concatenation sites:

- **Host header** (lines 583–590): the host binary is written straight into `Host: <host>:<port>\r\n`. - **Sec-WebSocket-Protocol** (lines 601–602): protocol tokens are joined with `, ` and appended as a header line. - **Extra headers** (line 606): caller-supplied `{Name, Value}` tuples are concatenated as `Name: Value\r\n` with no sanitization of either component. - **Request path** (line 611): the path is interpolated into the `GET <path> HTTP/1.1\r\n` request line.

None of these sites reject `\r`, `\n`, or `\0`. A header value like `<<"benign\r\nAuthorization: Bearer token">>` produces two distinct header lines on the wire. A path with an embedded `\r\n` rewrites the request line itself.

### PoC

1. Call `:hackney_ws.start_link/1` with `headers: [{"X-User", "v\r\nAuthorization: Bearer attacker"}]`. 2. Connect to a raw TCP listener and capture the bytes hackney writes. 3. The request contains a standalone `Authorization: Bearer attacker` line that the upstream WebSocket server parses as a legitimate header.

### Impact

Header injection / request smuggling in outbound WebSocket upgrades. Affects hackney 2.0.0 through 4.0.0 wherever `host`, `path`, `headers`, or `protocols` options are populated from network or user input. Consequences include forging authentication headers toward the upstream server, log and cache poisoning, and request smuggling through intermediary proxies. CVSS v4.0: **6.9 (MEDIUM)**.

## Resources

* Introduction commit: https://github.com/benoitc/hackney/commit/690cecaf236fba49526da404a5bc889a24367a3e * Patch commit: https://github.com/benoitc/hackney/commit/52310ca807e7b48441ba0e9129171f535313fdd1

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Affected packages

Hex / hackney
Introduced in: 2.0.0 Fixed in: 4.0.1
Fix mix deps.update hackney

References